Thank you for reading my humble writings & I hope you enjoy the conclusion of my short story about T'riss.

*********************************

-8-“T’risstree, dalnilnuk, open up!”Triss popped awake. Someone was knocking on her door. “Malice?”“I have to talk to you,” Malice whispered and quickly shut the door behind her.“How are you?” she asked Triss.“I’m bored out of my mind and my eyes are sore. I can’t wait to get back. And those humans, oh Malice, they are ugly…and lousy in bed. Don’t you think so?”Malice sat in silence for a while.“Don’t you think so?” T’risstree repeated the question and Malice evaded her glare.“Malice, don’t you think so??”Malice lowered her eyes and shook her head. It was a minute movement but big enough for Triss to notice.“That man that I’ve been with, he is… He is wonderful,” Malice whispered.Triss slapped Malice across the face.“Wake up! You do not belong here!”“I thought you’d be happy…” Malice smiled. “…If I didn’t return.”“No! Not like this Malice! We make a good team you and I! We can both go back.See how well we’ve played the villagers together? Maybe this is what Matron Viconia wanted us to see? That we can work together!”Malice just shook her head and started walking towards the door.“Malice, please think about this. It will pass….”Malice nodded.“I’m sure it will.”

As the days went by, T’risstree grew tired of pretending that she was having fun with the humans, and the stronger her boredom grew, the more tricks she played on the townspeople.She had a beautiful stash of treasure that she had stolen from various stores around town with the intention of bringing it all back to the Underdark. She had seduced several males, husbands as well as unattached ones, and she was just as bored and unsatisfied with every single one of them. She couldn’t understand what Malice saw in these boring, ugly creatures.

“Let’s go into the forest,” Andy suggested one night after dinner, and she willingly followed along for a little rendezvous as usual.He started kissing her passionately and she pretended to melt in his arms when all of a sudden she found herself with a knife to her throat.“You little thieving wench,” she heard a voice growling. “You thought you’d get away with this, didn’t you?” The voice belonged to one of the shopkeepers in town.“Andy?” Triss looked around and found Andy cowardly standing a few feet away, determined not to look at her.“You tricked me! You tricked me!” She snarled at him.“You’re about to get what you deserve. I knew we couldn’t trust you dark ones!”“And what do you want?” She changed her tune and traced her finger across his face. He trembled a little and lowered his knife. “You want some of this?” she cooed and pressed her sexy body against his.“Trevor, you’re losing it,” one of the other males said and whipped out his knife, but he was too slow. The brief distraction had bought T’risstree enough time to pull out one sword for each hand and before the men even had a chance to notice that she was armed at all, the shopkeeper was lying headless in the grass and she was already aiming for another male.“Die light-lovers!” she hissed before she buried her sword in his body and watched him gargle up blood before he sunk to the ground like a sack of potatoes.A third male had snuck up behind her with his knife and she cried out in pain as his knife sunk into her shoulder. The male seemed surprised over actually having hurt her and she realized that this was not a regular army. It was merely a bunch of cowards with knives. T’risstree grinned at the male who was still stunned by his achievements with the dagger, and a silent swoosh was all the warning he had before she introduced his neck to her lightning fast blade.“Triss,” Andy said and she turned around. He was holding a bow and the arrow was pointing at her.“Andy you don’t want to kill me,” she said softly. “I’ll leave. I’ll leave right now if you let me go.”His hands were trembling and she spotted hesitance in his blue eyes.“I have to do this Triss,” he said and pulled the string on the bow back even further.“Please don’t lover,” she purred.“Will you leave?” Andy said.“I will leave,” Triss nodded. “No more trouble from me.”She walked up to him and let her lips embrace his. He started shaking and she unbuttoned his pants.“One last memory,” she whispered and pulled him down on to the moss-covered ground, and he was unable to resist her advances.“I’m going to miss you T’risstree,” he gasped in ecstasy. As he was busy climaxing, he never saw the dagger that impaled his heart from behind.“I won’t miss you at all,” Triss growled as she rolled his heavy, lifeless body off of hers and wiped his blood from her chest.

-9-

Hastily she ran to the inn and gathered all her items in a hurry, before she ran over to Malice’s room.“Malice!” She knocked on her door and after awhile it opened.“I’m busy.” Malice was half-naked and flushed. There was no question who she was busy with. “Come back later.”“I have to leave Malice,” Triss whispered. “Are you coming?”Malice shook her head.“No,” she said.“You know what will happen if you don’t return,” T’risstree whispered.Malice’s eyes darkened and she nodded.“You will be declared kill on sight in the Underdark,” Triss reminded her. “Do you want to live the rest of your life being hunted by your own?”“It’s better than what’s facing me back there if I lose,” Malice said.“But you may win! We don’t know! We can both win! ” Triss tried to talk Malice out of the big mistake she was about to commit. “We can both win! Look at us! We’re working well together! Dalnilnuk, I think this experience has brought us closer. Maybe it is possible for us to both live in peace? We compliment each other, you have skills I lack and vice versa. We can make it work Malice!”But she could tell by the look on Malice’s face that she was in love and had no intentions of letting him go.“Goodbye Triss,” Malice whispered.“Aluve’ dalnilnuk,” Triss replied and started walking away, and then she turned around one last time.“Malice, I caused some problems… You know how they blame all drow for something that one did wrong. Just tell them what a horrible wench I am. Tell them…”Malice held a hand up to make her stop talking.“Shut up and go,” she smiled. “I’m the actress. I know what to say!”

T’risstree held on to her belongings and ran out of the village as fast as she could. She heard screams and loud voices and knew they had discovered her handiwork.She fumbled for her brooch that Viconia had given her, rubbed it five times but even before she could say the magic words, she was flying through a dark tunnel and suddenly she was back in the Underdark.“Congratulations T’risstree, you survived.”Viconia stood before her with a big smile.“I didn’t even use the brooch?” T’risstree was confused.“It was time for you two to return. It has been a week. I won’t even leave my worst enemy up there for longer than that,” Viconia grinned.Then she looked at the empty space next to T’risstree.“Malice?”T’risstree lowered her eyes to the floor and shrugged.“She didn’t?” Viconia grabbed Triss’ face and forced her to look up.“She did.” Triss’ voice was genuinely sad.“That coward. If she ever shows herself here again or you run into her up there, she is to be killed. Do you understand that T’risstree?”Triss nodded.“I do,” she said.“Spread the word,” Viconia sighed.“This is why I sent you there,” she continued. “To see which one of you would survive and whose minds would get corrupted by the light…”“They are so boring,” T’risstree complained. “How will she survive with them? Not to mention they can’t please a drow in bed and they’re all...” Viconia chuckled at all her complaints.“Oh but look what I brought!” T’risstree interrupted herself and poured her bags out all over the floors, revealing all the goods she had stolen and brought back to Xyldynn.“Triss! What have you done?” Viconia laughed and picked through the treasure pile.“It almost cost me my life,” Triss said.“Oh don’t be so dramatic dalnilnuk. Light-lovers are no match for a drow,” Viconia grinned and T’risstree shrugged. “Unless they get to your conscience and your heart strings,” Viconia continued and Triss knew that she was thinking of Malice’s betrayal.“I’m going to miss her Viconia,” Triss admitted. “We found each other out there.”Viconia nodded.“I know,” she said. “That was part of the challenge. I wouldn’t have had to pick a winner, would I?”T’risstree just shook her head, and they said nothing more.

-10-

“Traitor!” T’risstree’s voice was filled with hatred as she lifted her crossbow and with a sturdy hand she pulled the trigger and watched the bolt penetrate its way through flesh and clothing, successfully finding its way to the unfortunate victim’s heart and terminating his life.Triumphantly she pulled the bolt back out, leaving the dead body behind.“Waste of a good bolt. Now clean it up,” she ordered one of the males.He bowed before her and quickly ran off to complete his task.“The last one made his way out Jabbress,” another male said.“Out? Where?”“You know…” He lowered his voice. “Out there.”“The light-lovers world?” she asked and the male nodded. T’risstree smiled and kissed him on the cheek.“Good work,” she said with a smirk. “Let’s go get him and you can please me later.”“Xas Jabbress,” he grinned.

Triss rubbed her brooch three times and muttered the necessary words and they found themselves on the outside all of a sudden. It was dark.“I’ve been here before,” Triss whispered. “Several years have passed since then, but I was right here in this very spot. It is stained with their blood...and a drop of my own.”“What’s it like?” One of the males was curious.“Boring,” she replied. “No fun in bed, no fun anywhere. Just boring.”“He can’t have gone far,” someone said. “He escaped this morning.”“It has been daylight since then. We don’t function well in daylight, it’s too … bright,” Triss whispered. “Spread out and go look for him. I’ll stay here. If you find him, come back to me.”T’risstree hid in the meantime, and her mind went back to the last time she had visited this place and to the bloody fight that had taken place in this very spot.The thought of it made her smile. She was proud of what she had achieved back then and in the years that had followed.She had been an excellent matron for the House of Xyldynn, and realized that the right drow had won the challenge. Triss didn’t know how well she would have liked sharing her power with Malice. Did she miss Malice? Not really.The only thing she missed was not having someone to harass when she was having a bad day, but there was never a lack of servants who volunteered to be harassed by T’risstree.Lately, Viconia had left most tasks and chores around the house in T’risstree’s hands and these days she was mostly basking in the glory of being the eldest and the wisest.

“Jabbress, look what I found!”One of the males came back, interrupting her train of thought.“This is a good catch jabbress,” he said and was dragging something, or someone, along the ground. Brutally he tossed it in front of her feet.T’risstree gasped as the “thing” looked up at her.“Malice!”The male nodded and was beaming with pride.“Do you want to do the honors Jabbress?” he said and looked at Malice, who was shivering on the ground before them.“Please T’risstree, please. Let me go.”“Go on, keep looking,” T’risstree commanded the drow male. “I’ll keep her here in the mean time.”He spun around and was gone again.“Please let me go dalnilnuk, please.”Her red eyes were glowing with fear as she was begging T’risstree to leave her be.“How is the light-loving world treating you?” Triss asked.“You left a big mess for me to clean up Triss,” Malice complained. “But I eventually made them see that I wasn’t like you. And I haven’t been… I’ve been good.I got married…”“Married??” T’risstree looked like she had tasted something extremely sour.“You confined to their institutions and nonsense formalities?? And you have sex with only one person forever?” She shuddered out of pure disgust.“It’s wonderful Triss, it really is. Now we want children.”“Do you miss the Underdark at all?” Triss asked her.Malice shook her head.“No I don’t,” she said bluntly, but her teary eyes told another tale.“Don’t lie to me wench,” Triss snarled.“Well… sometimes I wonder… you know. What you’re doing, what it would be like if I had returned with you. But I made my choice and I have to live with it.”“That’s for me to decide if you get to live with it,” Triss stated.“Please let me go dalnilnuk, please.”A few of the drow males had returned with no result.“He is nowhere to be found,” one of them said. “We’ll have to look elsewhere.”

“Malice??? MALICE!”Someone was stomping through the woods, crying out her name.“That’s John,” Malice whispered.“So that is John,” Triss grinned. “Let’s invite him to the party shall we?”“Call him! Call him now,” she hissed and nailed Malice with a pair of fiery red eyes.“What has gotten into you? I thought we were friends?” Malice said.“Friends,” Triss spit. “That was before you betrayed us all! Maybe we could have been. But we’re not friends. You’ve made yourself the enemy!”They heard branches snap as John came running through, and at first he didn’t notice them at all, until he stopped to catch his breath and realized he was surrounded by drow.

-11-

“Malice? Are you okay?”“Triss… please let us go. Nobody will know. These males are faithful to you, they won’t betray you.”“But would I want to betray myself?” Triss asked her.T’risstree nodded to one of her males who flicked out his sword and John found himself in a tight grip with a sharp blade pressing against his throat.“Please don’t Triss,” Malice begged.“Remember Amalika?” T’risstree wheezed. Her ruby-colored eyes were flickering with cool hatred.Malice screamed as Triss signaled the one holding John and he slit John’s throat without a word.“Now we are even.” Triss stared at Malice, who kept stroking a golden band that was clinging to her left ring finger.“I could kill you now, but killing you seems like an easy way out, doesn’t it Malice? What would you do now, without him, without us… and without them?”She nodded in direction of the village and doubted they would forgive the drow again for having killed off another one of their friends. Malice would for certain be chased out of town, if not killed. Nevertheless she would be declared kill on sight again, this time by the humans.“The sun will be up soon. We have to go boys,” Triss declared.“Stay out of our way Malice…and I suggest you start running from them if you want to live.”T’risstree started rubbing her brooch to return home.“I’m sorry about Amalika,” Malice wept. “I’m so sorry.”“I’m sorry too,” Triss said. She paused on the forth stroke and glanced at Malice who was readying herself to flee.“Malice,” she said.“Malice, look at me.”Malice slowly turned around to face T’risstree, only to be met by a flying blade.“I’ll give you the easy way out one last time,” Triss muttered before the sword collided with Malice’s head and they watched Malice’s body sink to the ground next to John’s. Quickly Triss rubbed the brooch a fifth time and brought them all back to the Underdark.

Viconia met them in the corridor.“Did you find him?” she asked.Triss shook her head and the two women exchanged a knowing look.“Lolth is proud of you,” Viconia smiled and ran a hand through Triss’ silver mane.“I am proud of me too.” Triss smiled confidently and headed for her room, where she closed the door behind her, hungry to be alone.She gazed at herself in the mirror and liked what she saw.“Vendui’ ussta alurl abbil,[1]” she mumbled and looked herself in the eyes.For the first time, and probably for the last time, in her life, T’risstree shed a tear.